My Soul to Keep (47 page)

Authors: Tananarive Due

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Horror

BOOK: My Soul to Keep

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Acknowledgments

First, special thanks to my family and foundation: my mother, Patricia Stephens Due; my father, John Dorsey Due Jr.; my sisters, Johnita and Lydia; and my grandmother, Lottie Sears Houston.

Much gratitude to the advance readers who helped make this a better book: Muncko and Carol Kruize, Luchina Fisher, Robert Vamosi, Olympia and Chris Duhart, Grace Lim, Bonita Whytehead, Alex Cambert, Rene Rodriguez, Ivan Roman, and Angela Youngblood. And, naturally, thanks to my agent, Janell Walden Agyeman of Marie Brown Associates; and to my editor, Peternelle van Arsdale.

For assistance and inspiration, much thanks to Dr. Charles Pegelow, M.D., director of the Sickle-Cell Center, University of Miami School of Medicine, who has a vivid imagination. To Fernando Gonzalez and Larry Pomilio, for teaching me so much about jazz. To Greg Kihn and Michael Marano, for their scary stories. And to Mitchell Kaplan, who still looks out for me.

Finally, thanks to Blanche Richardson for her warmth, her love of books, and for introducing me to such an impressive, powerful fellowship of African-American writers.

About the Author

TANANARIVE DUE is a
Miami Herald
columnist, a Bram Stoker Award finalist, and a contributor to the bestselling collaborative Florida thriller.
Naked Came the Manatee.

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Praise
for
My Soul to Keep
by Tananarive Due

“I loved this novel, and think it may be the next hot thing to happen in the supernatural suspense genre—it’s really big and really satisfying, an eerie epic that bears favorable comparison to
Interview with the Vampire
…. I read it non-stop, and think it’s destined for bestseller lists.”

—Stephen King

“Due, the author of
The Between
… blends the supernatural with ordinary humans, creating a suspenseful tale of great love and even greater loss.”

—
Washington Post

“With one foot in the crime-novel genre and one foot in Anne Rice territory, Due delivers a gripping thriller that’s a worthy companion to her award-winning debut.”

—
Time Out New York

“In this harrowing and moving second novel, Due enlivens the potentially formulaic genre of supernatural suspense with a sharp eye for realistic detail…. The pull between the mortal and the immortal defines the span of this deftly woven tale, a novel populated with vivid, emotional character that is also a chilling journey to another world.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A deftly crafted journey into the darkness of a man’s soul when confronted with the inevitable loss of those he holds most dear…. Leads the reader to a stunning climax.”

—
The Observer Reporter

“
My Soul to Keep
is compelling, dark and eerie. It calls into question all of our common assumptions about life and death and turns them inside out.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“Tananarive Due does what many suspense writers only hope to do: She grabs us, scares us and convinces is we should hold on tight to the very end.”

—
Houston Chronicle

“
My Soul to Keep
is richly imagined, using details of history, the arts and sciences to craft a riveting tale.”

—
Emerge

Other Books by Tananarive Due

The Between

Copyright

Eos

An Imprint of
HarperCollins
Publishers

10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022-5299

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

MY SOUL TO KEEP
. Copyright © 1997 by Tananarive Due. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Eos Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca Registrada, Hecho en U.S.A.
HarperCollins® is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

First HarperPrism trade paperback printing: April 1998
First Eos trade paperback printing: June 2001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Due, Tananarive.